User:Quinten swagerman/steve/what

Writing assignment #1: What

One Page Flip

One Page Flip is a flip book – a little book which, when held in the left hand and flipped through with the right, shows an animation. The cover is white, and on it it says in bold, black, capital letters:

ONE PAGE FLIP

The book has 75 pages. The paper is 80 grams, textured white. On the pages: an thin black line-drawn animation of two hands flipping an empty flip book. One page is being flipped. In other words: within the span of flipping 75 pages, one page flips in the flip book within the flip book.

Collective Waiting Portrait

Collective Waiting Portrait is a website that collects pictures of people waiting at pedestrian traffic lights. The pictures are taken from the other side of the street, so that the people photographed look in the direction of the camera. The photographs are scaled so that the peoples’ sizes match, rotated so that the horizon is straight, and placed horizontally next to each other, the pavements connecting. The image taken last is placed left, scrolling to the right shows the earlier taken images. Under the pictures: the name of the city in which the image was taken, the date on which it was taken, the first name of the person that took it, preceded by the two words ‘thank’ and ‘you’. Two red buttons in the form of a circle hover over the images in the top left corner. The COLLECTIVE WAITING PORTRAIT button opens a window which gives a brief description of the aim of the site: ‘Collective Waiting Portrait collects people waiting for the light to turn green’, under this description: a Facebook ‘Like’ button. The SUBMIT button opens another window, with the e-mail address that people can use to submit images to.

People know of the site by a yellow sticker to be found on traffic lights. This sticker has on it:

- an illustration of a man taking a picture of two people on the other end of the zebra crossing. - the instructions: 1) take a picture of the people on the other side 2) send to submit@collectivewaitingportrait.net.

Blip Listening

Blip Listening is a series of animations based on field recordings, to be seen on smartphones, being launched by a sticker with a QR-code, to be found on different places in Rotterdam.

The animations are short, from 30 seconds to one minute and 30 seconds. They visualize one sound element from the field recording in a minimal and abstract manner. For example: a white bar on a black background visualizes the bleep of a cash register in a supermarket. The visualized sound recordings where made on squares, in supermarkets, at intersections, in metro stations etcetera.

The animation is launched by a QR-code. This QR-code is to be found on a transparent sticker, 15 by 10 centimeters, placed where the sound was recorded. The sticker also shows a visual element from the animation it launches. In case of the bleeping cash registers: a bar.